By Kamiko Chamble
SUNY Plattsburgh is launching a one-credit course next semester that would bring student actors into nursing classrooms.
A standardized, or simulated, patient is someone who is trained to portray a patient in a realistic way for the purpose of teaching and evaluating clinical skills. Standardized patients can be used in a variety of settings, including interactive teaching environments, group demonstrations and clinical examinations.
“Two years ago, the nursing program reached out to the theater department,” said Julia Devine, lecturer of English and theater. “They were interested in starting a program like this, so it’s been talked about and now we’re finally going to give it a go.”
Theater students help students in healthcare practice their skills in a safe space before working with real patients. Even after the student actors graduate, they can be employed as standardized patients.
Students don’t have to be a theater major or minor to sign up for the course — the only prerequisite is the THE106 Acting for Everyone class.
“You’ll definitely want to feel comfortable enough that you could go into a clinical space and act as this patient with the goal of helping train these nursing students,” Devine said.
The one-hour credit course THE320A will meet twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes from Feb. 3 through March 9. After the in-class component, the practicum begins with students serving as standardized patients for the nursing clinicals.
“I’ll be figuring some of this out with the nursing program for the remainder of the semester, in terms of if they’re going to give me the particular profiles of these patients ahead of time, or we’ll work on sample patient profiles,” Devine said.
Before getting started, actors will be scheduled for up to three sessions with the nursing program as their schedules allow.
“You’re helping train healthcare workers, which impacts the healthcare profession, and so you’re using your skills to serve the healthcare space, which I think is great,” Devine said.
Once the course and practicum are over, you can become a teaching assistant working as a standardized patient for the nursing program.
